Restoration of one of the Protestant bishops. 1571. Question why the others were not restored. A coadjutor bishop. Scheme of a Protestant planta 1572. deprivation by Queen Mary's commissioners, and on his successor's resignation of the bishoprick from some cause which is not related, that Bishop Casey was reinstated in his see of Limerick", being the only one of the deprived prelates who was restored: for Thomas Lancaster, bishop of Kildare, who bore the same names, and has sometimes been identified, with him who succeeded Archbishop Loftus in the primacy, was, in fact, a different person; and neither he, nor any of his fellow-sufferers, was again placed in the episcopal office. Why neither of these, who had incurred the penalty of their confession of the reformed faith, was restored to his dignity on Queen Elizabeth's accession; or why Bishop Casey was not restored till after the lapse of so long a period of deprivation, has not been fully explained. Bishop Bale is supposed not to have desired restoration; and possibly the others were dead before the opportunity had arrived for restoring them. But, in effect, this conduct of the government rather wears the appearance of lenity and forbearance towards the advocates of Popery, than of a just and equitable consideration for the martyrs of the Reformed Church. Bishop Casey survived his restoration twenty years, having lived to a good old age; and is a rather uncommon instance of a Protestant bishop having his spiritual functions performed by a coadjutor, on account of his great age and infirm health, which rendered him unequal to the discharge of his official duties. a In 1572, a scheme was formed by Sir Thomas tion in the Ards. Smith for making a Protestant plantation in the Ards, a peninsular district of the county of Down, under the conduct of his natural son, who was like37 WARE'S Bishops, p. 510. 38 WOOD's Athen. Oxon., vol. i. p. 175. wise a Thomas Smith, assisted by a person of the name of Chatterton: but in consequence of the murder of the leader of the colony, the design proved unsuccessful. In the following year, Hugh Allen, one of the colonists, who had been "much commended to the queen as a good preacher and a zealous man," was promoted to the bishoprick of Down and Connor, on the vacancy made by the death of John Merriman, the first Protestant bishop who occupied that see, to which he had been appointed four years before". The vacancy of the see for more than two years, on Allen's translation to Ferns, in 1582, is a neglect on the part of the government, rather to be lamented than explained. SECTION III. Sir Henry Sidney's Letter to the Queen. Her commission for the supply of Churches and Curates. Instances of Popish Insubordination. Sir John Perrot's Instructions concerning the Church. Appointment of a Bishop for Kilmore. Failure of Plan for an University. Act against Witchcraft. Foundation of University of Dublin. IN the autumn of the year 1575, the excellent Sir Henry Sidney, who had five times before been at the head of the Irish government, was again intrusted with the office of Lord Deputy. His thoughts and his labour were at once bestowed on the improvement of the kingdom: and the result of his investigations, respecting the deplorable condition of the church, was made known to the queen in the following letter, written in the ensuing spring. 39 WARE'S Bishops, p. 446. Cox, i. 341. Sir Henry Sidney, Lord Deputy. 1575. His letter to the queen. Lamentable state of the church. Diocese of Destitution of curates. "May it please your most excellent Majesty, "I have in four several discourses, addressed unto the lords of your highness's most honourable council, certified them how I found this your highness's realm at mine arrival into the same; and what I have seen and understand by my travel these six last months, in which I have passed through each province, and have been almost in each county thereof: the which I would not send to your most excellent majesty, immediately to be read by the same, lest they should have seemed too tedious, partly through the quantity of the matter, but chiefly through the bad delivery thereof by my pen: not doubting but your majesty is, by this time, advertised of the material points contained in them. "And now, most dear mistress and most honoured sovereign, I solely address to you, as to the only sovereign salve-giver to this your sore and sick realm. The lamentable estate of the most noble and principal limb thereof, the church I mean, as foul, deformed, and as cruelly crushed, as any other part thereof, by your only gracious and religious order to be cured, or at least amended, I would not have believed, had I not for a great part viewed the same throughout the whole realm; and was advertised of the particular estate of each church in the bishoprick of Meath, being the best inhabited country of all this realm, by the honest, zealous, and learned bishop of the same, Mr. Hugh Brady, a godly minister of the Gospel, and a good servant of your highness, who went from church to church himself, and found that there are within his diocese two hundred and twenty-four parish churches, of which number one hundred and five are impropriated to sundry possessions, now of your highness, and now leased out for years, or in fee-farm, to several farmers, and great gain reaped out of them above the rent, which your majesty receiveth: no parson or vicar resident upon any of them, and a very simple or sorry curate for the most part appointed to serve them; among which number of curates only eighteen were found able to speak English, the rest Irish priests, or rather Irish rogues, having very little Latin, less learning or civility. and mode of of churches. "All these live upon the bare altarages" (emoluments Their character arising from the services of the altar) "as they call them; living. and were wont to live upon the gain of masses, dirges, shrivings, and such like trumpery, goodly abolished by your majesty no one house standing for any of them to dwell in. In many places the very walls of the churches down: Ruinous state very few chancels covered, windows and doors ruined or spoiled. There are fifty-two other parish-churches in the same diocese, who have vicars endowed upon them, better served and maintained than the other, yet but badly. There are fifty-two parish-churches more, residue of the first number of two hundred and twenty-four, which pertain to divers particular lords; and these, though in better estate than the rest commonly are, yet far from well. of other dioceses. "If this be the estate of the church in the best-peopled Worse condition diocese, and best-governed country of this your realm, as in truth it is; easy is it for your majesty to conjecture in what case the rest is, where little or no reformation, either of religion or manners, hath yet been planted and continued among them: yea, so profane and heathenish are some Their heathenish parts of this your country become, as it hath been preached state. publickly before me, that the sacrament of baptism is not used among them: and truly I believe it. No church so of Ireland. miserable as that "If I should write unto your majesty, what spoil hath been, and is, of the archbishopricks, of which there are four, and of the bishopricks, whereof there are above thirty, partly by the prelates themselves, partly by the potentates, their noisome neighbours, I should make too long a libel of this my letter. But your majesty may believe it, that upon the face of the earth, where Christ is professed, there is not a church in so miserable a case: the misery of which consisteth in these three particulars: the ruin of the very Misery of three temples themselves; the want of good ministers to serve in them when they shall be re-edified; competent living for the ministers, being well chosen. particulars. dies as to build "For the first, let it like your most gracious majesty Proposed remeto write earnestly to me, and to whom else it may best ings, please you, to examine in whom the fault is, that the churches are so ruinous: if it be found in the country or farmers, to compel them speedily to go about the amend And ministers who can speak Irish, To be sought in the English universities, ment of them; if the fault, for the churches of your highness's inheritance, be not in the farmers, nor they bound to repair them, (and the most ruined of them are such as are of your possession,) it may like you to grant warrant, that some portion may yearly, of the revenue of every parsonage, be bestowed on the church of the same. "For the second and third, which is, that good ministers might be found to occupy the places, and they made able to live in them: in choice of which ministers, for the remote places, where the English tongue is not understood, it is most necessary that such be chosen as can speak Irish: for which search would be made, first and speedily, in your own universities; and any found there, well affected in religion, and well conditioned beside, they would be sent hither animated by your majesty; yea, though it were somewhat to your highness's charge: and on peril of my life you shall find it returned with gain, before three years be expired. If there be no such there, or not enough, (for I wish ten or twelve at the least,) to be sent, who might be placed in offices of dignity in the church, in remote places of this realm, then do I wish, (but this most humbly under your highness's correction,) that you would write to the And in Scotland. regent of Scotland, where, as I learn, there are many of the Provision recommended for the pale. reformed church that are of this language, that he would prefer to your highness so many, as shall seem good to you to demand, of honest, zealous, and learned men, and that could speak this language: and, though for a while your majesty were at some charge, it were well bestowed, for in short time their own preferments would be able to suffice them; and in the mean time thousands would be gained to Christ, that now are lost, or left at the worst. "And for the ministry of the churches of the English churches of the pale of your own inheritance, be contented, most virtuous queen, that some convenient portion for a minister may be allowed to him, out of the farmer's rent; it will not be much loss to you in your revenue, but gain otherwise inestimable, and yet the decay of your rent but for a while: for, the years once expired of the leases already granted, there is no donbt but that to be granted to the church will be recovered with increase. |